I like to have felt it up...just sayin'.

I've always been a serious fan of hand felting. Having tried it in my washing machine with a whole host of jeans and tennis balls before, I find nothing does the trick like hand felting. Why you ask? Welp, because you can really manipulate the wool, particularly with items that need a lot of shaping--think purses, felted squiddles, and other various odds and ends, mostly of the kitsch variety.Felting by hand is a tedious endeavor. You must have a burning, scalding hot kettle of water at the ready all times, and plenty of dish soap to create a vigorous lather. What's more, it absolutely kills the bicept, forarm, and wrists--so for myself, its extra painful and for days after the first felting session, I have to break for my muscles, nevermind the fact I want to see what the wool does when it's dry so I can tweak my second go round.I love doing it in my bathroom sink because it's just the right height for gaining enough leverage to work the wool. I could sit at that sink upwards of two hours during the process--one time having realized I'd worked my way through the entire Arcade Fire collected albums. That's too long...don't obsess like I do, just go back to it again later.Expect serious prunnage of your hands. But expect your felted goodies to reach new heights in their toughness, firmness, and of course, shapeliness.This pink monstrosity of wool being doused in water and soapy mess is a small felted clutch with button design I was meant to finish for my future sister in law for Christmas, but do to absolute wrist failure (and the wool not shaping as I like), it's not finished yet. I've used the Rowan Big Wool, which I thought would instantaneously felt up. Not true. It's taken quite awhile but at least one trick I've learned from the whole thing is a sink dish brush works wonders on felting. Just work the brush on the wool in a circular motion (but not too early on--or it will pill the wool and leave your sink full of fluffy wet balls and bits) and you'll get just the right taught felt.How do you like to felt your knitted goods?